Your Steam wishlist is about to get longer. Six upcoming PC games have surfaced this week that are worth your attention for one simple reason: they look absolutely spectacular, each in completely different ways.
Use code TRYHARD33 at checkout to redeem this offer before code expires again.
Get 33% Off GAMES+ Subscription
Art styles that actually stop the scroll
Most games get wishlisted on concept alone. These six earn it before you even read the description.
Vivarium, from Studio Meadowflower, is the kind of game that makes you do a double-take. Its hand-drawn art is so clean and naturalistic that it genuinely looks like a playable anime, evoking the same earthy warmth as Hayao Miyazaki's work. Cozy games live and die by their visual identity, and Vivarium has one of the strongest first impressions of any indie announced this year.
Then there's Rebounder, which debuted at Tribeca Fest earlier this year and hasn't left the conversation since. It's a precision platformer built for Celeste fans, but what sets it apart visually is its comic book aesthetic, all inky outlines and flat colors that look ripped straight from a graphic novel. The style isn't just decorative either; it actually reinforces the tension of its tight, demanding level design.
Hand-drawn adventures and cartoon chaos
The Eternal Life of Goldman from Weappy Studio is the Metroidvania to watch. Its trailers follow an old man on a quest to take down a deity, and the hand-drawn animation is genuinely some of the best-looking 2D work shown in any upcoming indie. The developer is pitching it as both challenging and approachable, which is a balance that's harder to pull off than it sounds.
On the complete opposite end of the aesthetic spectrum sits Cybrlich and the Death Cult of Labor, which first turned heads at this year's Game Developers Conference. The first-person shooter looks like an Adult Swim cartoon rendered in a game engine, full of skeletons, blood, and an energy that's impossible to ignore. Early demos have confirmed it plays as wild as it looks.
The two you might almost overlook
Reason and Rhyme is easy to underestimate from a screenshot, but watch it in motion and the appeal clicks immediately. The two-player co-op puzzle game has you solving problems as a pair of birds, and its art style draws directly from Nintendo 3DS' Flipnote Studio app. That means rough, expressive linework that feels alive in a way that polished 3D games rarely manage. It launches October 15.
Lelu rounds out the list with something more restrained. The top-down adventure game about a clockwork toy uses a monochromatic palette that calls back to the Game Boy era without feeling like a nostalgia exercise. Black-and-white indie games have had a quiet moment this year, and Lelu looks like one of the sharper entries in that space.
Why art style matters more than you think
Here's the thing about a strong visual identity: it does more than make screenshots look good. Games with a distinct look tend to hold up better over time, and they communicate tone, genre, and feel instantly in a way that a paragraph of marketing copy never can. All six of these games have that quality.
For comparison, consider what Victoria 3 pulled off with its visual updates. Our Victoria 3 The Great Wave update rundown covers how Paradox added Japanese architecture, 20 new ship models, and a full UI skin overhaul to transform the game's look without changing its core. That kind of visual intentionality is exactly what these six upcoming titles are already demonstrating before they've even launched.
The key here is that a wishlist hit doesn't need to be a triple-A release. These are all indie or mid-size projects, and every one of them has a stronger visual concept than most games with ten times the budget.
If you're looking to stay ahead of what's coming to PC, our gaming guides cover everything from early access platform availability to mod lists and update breakdowns. For 1666: Amsterdam specifically, check out our guide on whether 1666: Amsterdam early access will come to PS5, Xbox, or Switch 2 while you're building out that wishlist.
